


Reconcile

by HovercraftOfEels



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, i am going to die waiting for this patch, spoilers for crisis on umbara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 08:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14052975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HovercraftOfEels/pseuds/HovercraftOfEels
Summary: Theron returns to the Alliance and tries to piece together the fragments of his relationship with the Commander.





	Reconcile

_It’s been a long five years. Feels like everything’s changed._

 

She’s tired, he can tell that. It’s more than the fact that none of them have slept in days, more than the turmoil of having him come back to her. It’s the war, the war she never asked to be a part of, the years that have been heavier on her shoulders than anyone else in the galaxy. He knew he did what he had to, Theron was a spy and spies went and --- spied. But the bags under her eyes told him the real cost. He hadn’t asked her to pay it.

Ariadne was walking back to her quarters, and she’d given him a Look before she did, so he followed. Theron didn’t know if it was anything like a homecoming; he didn’t really expect that. She couldn’t forgive him, not after everything he said and did. Not after Umbara. Not after everything. But he owed her that much, at least. He owed her the chance to look her in the eyes and listen to her end it, even if it shattered him. After all, he’d started it on that train.

 

_People always try to break us up. They never learn._

She didn’t speak until the door closed behind him, her shoulders only sinking then. Ariadne had learned, and she’d learned fast that a leader couldn’t show weakness, couldn’t let them believe her to be anything but the strongest of them all. The happy-go-lucky smuggler was long, long go, and in her place was the Commander. Sure, she still joked sometimes, but it was rarer, and only around certain people.

He used to be one of them.

Theron’s eyes were caught on a streak of red against the chair by her closet ( their closet, he realized all of his clothes were still there. ) He had a spare jacket, his original long gone after Umbara, but this one she’d kept. There was a lump in his throat and he just froze there in the doorway, unable to take another step in. It felt like a violation, coming back here after everything that he’s done, like he could just make it right somehow because he went in, assuming the worst. It was obvious that the worst wasn’t her angry.

The worst was that she had waited. In spite of everything, she had waited.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, but she wasn’t looking at him either. Her quarters ( their quarters, she had asked him to move in with her after the Golden Dawn heist, sick of the game of asking for permission to stay the night when they were both running on fumes as it was ) overlooked the wilds, where she had vanished what felt like a lifetime ago and he had been so terrified of losing her. Again.

When the entire double agent mess had started, it had felt more or less like an accident. A perfect contact who just had to believe that he hated his girlfriend. That he would betray the Alliance he had worked for half a decade to create, to tear down the only person in his life that mattered. It had felt like a joke, playing the guy for an idiot until it became obvious that he had to stop them or she _would_ be in danger. That they might actually hurt her, so he did what he did best. He deflected them by pretending to be one of them. He became a kriffing spy, working against the Alliance and committed fully towards the Order. He had said hurtful things. Carefully orchestrated the attacks that would make it look like she was in danger. The whole shebang.

It was all bullshit. But the only way that it would work is if there was no question by anyone that he had turned traitor. That didn’t make it any easier, watching her heart break behind the stasis field on that Force forsaken train. That didn’t matter when he finally brought the Order crashing down around itself from within and could hand their enemies over to the Commander, who still had that hollow look in her eyes, even now. She had wanted him to follow her here, but he’d follow her anywhere.

It just looked like she didn’t know where she was going anymore.

Finally, the silence had stretched on for too long, and he had to say something, anything because the tension was killing him and she seemed lost in a hell that he’d made for her. “I understand if you don’t want me here, Ariadne.” It was gentle, to gentle, almost cloying and she turned on him sharply. Theron sucked in a breath, but he owed her this, he reminded himself. She had more than every right to be angry.

But her eyes weren’t angry.

 

_I’ll always love you, Theron. Nothing will ever change that._

 

“I want you here, so let’s get that out of the way.” Her voice was still the same, the voice she used with just the two of them, not that sharp cadence that being the Commander demanded. Theron knew better than to relax, though. To think it meant anything. Still, he couldn’t have expected the sudden weight around his waist, the way her arms wrapped around him, and he responded in kind almost reflexively.

He just didn’t think he deserved it, at all. Keeping his mouth shut, he held her back like his life depended on it. It more or less always had.

“I’ve spent months now alone while you were off on your bullshit, so let’s make something clear, Theron Shan. I want you here.” Her voice was tight, muffled against his shirt but she seemed to have no desire to pull away.

He still didn’t relax. There was a good chance he would never relax again.

“I’m sorry,” Theron said, his voice breaking as he buried his face against her hair, holding her as tightly as he dared because they were both still banged up from the earlier fighting, the final end to the Order. This wasn’t forgiveness, she hadn’t said those words and in spite of all of Ariadne’s kindness, she was a woman who used her words very, very carefully. He held her, wishing he could figure out why she felt so far away when they were closer than they had been in months.

Only after he realized his shirt was getting wet did he figure out she was crying. In spite of everything they’d been through, he’d never seen her do that before. Theron was frozen, just holding her shaking frame while she sobbed in near silence. At some point, they sank to the floor together, Ariadne curled in his lap as she grew still and quiet again, head buried in the crook of his neck as he stroked her back, waiting for her to talk. To say something, anything, because he had never felt so lost.

“I knew you were lying. I mean, not at first, but by the time you were on the speeder, I had it figured out,” she started, sort of softly, one hand fisted in his shirt like she could hold him there. He didn’t really want to leave, but he didn’t blame her either. “You were performing. You needed me to react as genuinely as possible, so you said what --- what they thought. What they believed about me. Before we left, when you promised everything you did was to protect me --- I knew you weren’t lying to me then. So you had to be, on the train. Your comm later, yeah.  I just knew it was all had to look real, that’s why you said it. I think. ” Her voice seemed so weak, but she pressed on and Theron said nothing, afraid to just make matters worse.

She pulled her head back, brushing her hair out of her face, her eyes red but what made his heart break all over again were the dark circles underneath them. She clearly hadn’t been sleeping, maybe here and there when Lana forced her. ( Or more likely sedated her. ) He pressed his forehead against hers, the apology silent. Waiting for what she was working towards. Hoping it wouldn’t break him, or more likely her.

“It was what you said.” Her voice broke, and she had to look away from him, over one shoulder out into the Odessen night even as her fingers tightened against his skin. “I never wanted this, Theron. All I ever wanted was my ship back.” She ducked her head, laughing without the slightest bit of humor. “Some piece of Bantha shit steals it on Ord Mantell, and the next thing I know I’m fighting Imperial Generals, Republic senators, ancient undead threats. It all kept going and going until I ended up here. In charge of the Alliance and I still don’t know what I’m doing.”

She looked at him with wide amber eyes, that lost look more painful than ever.

“I never wanted to sit on any Force forsaken throne. You know that, right? That every choice I’ve made, every step I’ve taken it’s just because I had to. Because I’m a worthless smuggler who got caught up in something, not because I wanted control of anything, let alone the galaxy.”

Theron reached up to touch her cheek, because he could put it all together at least, he was good at that much. “Ariadne, I only said those things ---” Before he could finish, she cut him off, shaking her head and putting a hand to his lips. It was hard, getting all this out, but she knew she had to.

“Theron, you said it because they believe that. And they’re probably not the only ones who believe I’m a terror, a corrupt blight on the galaxy. Maybe they’re not even wrong, I don’t know.” Getting that out was what she had struggled with, and as soon as it slipped from her lips, she almost deflated against him, head against his shoulder.

“I never asked for this. And I probably shouldn’t be leading anyone, let alone the entire galaxy.”

There’s silence in their room, because he won’t be flippant, he won’t just talk over her worries, even as he wants to abjectly reject the entire idea that she shouldn’t be doing this. There was still somehow more guilt eating away at him, because she had seen through his act yet had been burned by it all the same. And yet still, she clung to him, she clearly forgave him, it was herself she couldn’t find forgiveness for. In spite of himself, it brought tears to his eyes, and he had to look out the window himself, because dangerous spies did not cry.

“Ariadne,” he finally managed, putting the words together carefully, not because he wanted to produce a desired reaction, like he’d been taught to in the SIS, but because this woman in his arms deserved the truth. “Ariadne, the entire galaxy couldn’t do better than you. I’m not just saying that, I’m not trying to make it better, I’m telling you the truth. There’s always a fringe, there’s always someone who is discontent. I’m not saying you ignore them but you can’t let them define you either. Because I’m pretty sure anyone else we offered that throne to would have already turned into the tyrant the Order insisted you were. You notice they weren’t really getting a lot of people agreeing with them, right?” She did manage a weak smile at that, and something unclenched in his chest. Theron brushed back a curl from her forehead and leaned in, kissing her forehead softly. He hated how much it felt like a risk.

“Theron, I meant it when I said that I don’t know what I’m doing. I try to make the right choices, but there is ---” her voice caught, even as she curled against him almost fiercely, like she could hide away from it all. “There is so much blood on my hands. I look down, and all I see is red.”

They sat silently for a while, the night sounds of the base settling around them. He held her in silence, because it didn’t seem like there was anything he could possibly say. Ariadne had settled against his chest again, staring out at a sky blanketed with stars, her hand finding his. Theron didn’t mind. His hands were pretty damn red too.

“It’s not like I can quit, but sometimes I think maybe everyone would have been better off if you’d left me in the carbonite and found someone else to be in charge,” she finally continued, the tension out of her shoulders, more or less. It was the sadness that he couldn’t take, though. That he couldn’t let her keep suffering through. It was his turn to interrupt.

“Ariadne, I know you didn’t ask for this. I know you didn’t want this, and I know you still don’t. And I’m not going to say you need to do it forever. Hell, if you wanted to, I would support you walking away tomorrow, okay?” His voice had picked up that clipped speed it had when things were coming together, and he noticed that she was smiling, just a little, in spite of herself, but he pressed on. “But don’t think for a moment that you’ve failed at anything, okay? Do you honestly believe that if some Republic general or some Sith commander had gotten to that throne first that there would be less blood? Less death? The only reason that there has been anything near to a balance is because of you, no matter how much every one else tried to fight you.”

He leaned back in, forehead pressed against hers, his eyes intent on hers. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. We had no right to do this to you.” His guilt, and Lana’s, and everyone else’s. “But you didn’t fail us. We failed you, by putting this all on your shoulders.” It was his turn to hear his voice break. “It doesn’t matter that you’ve done better than anyone could have asked you to. We didn’t have the right to ask in the first place.”

She exhaled, pressing a kiss to his cheek, still cautious, still relearning what it felt like to let someone so close. They’d had months apart, and even if she hadn’t thought him to really be a traitor, he’d left so much destruction in his wake. But his little smuggler with the heart of gold had never been one to shy from lost causes, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a way that made him feel like he almost deserved it. Theron buried his face against her shoulder, and she held him tighter.

“I won’t walk away. I know that I really can’t, not yet. But some day, you and I will walk away from all of this, okay?” She looked at him, finally with some hope in her eyes. “Let it be someone else’s turn to fix all this shit. But in the meantime –” Ariadne tilted her head, looking at him with a small smile.

“I forgive you.”

Three simple words, never earned, never deserved, but he clung to them all the same. Her fingers found his hair again, his hair that would grow back, probably a little greyer this time since they weren’t getting younger, and the years had been so hard to them both. But when she pulled back, there was that light that had been gone from her eyes even brighter now, and he almost headbutted her in his attempt to kiss her, because where that heaviness had been before now there was something lighter, something brighter in its place.

It wasn’t perfect, it wouldn’t be for a while. There would be struggles and fights and there were words that couldn’t be taken back but she forgave him.

He’d been so sure there would be no home to come back to. Theron had forgotten that just wasn’t how home worked. She kissed him back, just as clumsily, and they both smiled against the other’s lips as the moons rose over Odessen.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Yeah, I'm not sure this is how it'll happen, but I sure can hope for it. I wanted to play with the smuggler dynamic with her power, since I find the non-Force users dealing with it all very interesting! Anyway, first fic in years, I hope you like it!


End file.
